Emergency services are often required to find their way within an unknown indoor environment, such as a large building. In some cases, for example when the building is on fire, visibility may be limited, which makes such navigation even harder.
The emergency forces may find it advantageous to have valid information about important stationary objects and related location within a building, such as a fire hydrant, a fuse box, a communication center, a stairwell, an elevator shaft, a safe, a fire resistant door, an emergency exit, a crash bar, a panic hardware, high-hazard items, safeguards, an emergency alarm system, an emergency light system, a fire detection system, an emergency tool or others.
However, using the internal floor plan of the building may prove useless, since internal walls are subject to change without notifying the authorities. Thus, in some cases floor plan information may prove harmful. For example, relying that a certain corridor leads to a required stationary object such as a fire hydrant, only to find out that the corridor has been blocked, may waste expensive time. In addition not all important stationary objects always appear on floor plans.
When attempting to map the exact location of a stationary object, known technologies such as GPS are of little use, since a GPS device located indoors is unable to communicate with satellites which are required for its operation.
There is thus a need for a method and apparatus that provide for mapping the exact location of stationary objects within a building.